


How Long is Forever?

by SouthSideStory



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: DarkJediStorm, F/M, Finnreylo, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-06-01 23:01:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6540145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthSideStory/pseuds/SouthSideStory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn brings out the best in Rey, her kindness and compassion, and he makes her happy. And Rey, she seems to soothe Finn, to make him laugh, where Kylo only ever manages to anger or frighten him. If he was a less selfish creature he could find some solace in the good they bring each other, but Ben has always been too consumed with his own wants to achieve any measure of peace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just to be clear out of the gate, this will be a story of Finn, Rey, and Ben developing a polyamorous relationship—not Rey cheating on Finn with Ben. If polyamory isn’t your thing, then this particular story may not be your cup of tea. Otherwise, welcome aboard this beautiful ship!
> 
> Many thanks to ReyloTrashCompactor for her beta work, as per usual. You are my sinning soulmate, dear! :D
> 
> The quote featured in this chapter is by Ernest Hemingway.

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_We are all broken. That’s how the light gets in._  

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No matter what name he goes by now, Finn will always think of the the general’s son as Kylo Ren. He spent too many years taking orders from him to see Ben Solo as anything besides the man in the mask.

Now he stands on the outskirts of the training yard, watching Rey and Kylo spar. Today they’ve put away practice swords, and they move with the passion and purpose of a true battle. Rey circles him, her yellow saberstaff spinning through complicated forms. Kylo blocks each of her blows with the lightsaber that once belonged to his uncle, and his grandfather before him. He handles the blue blade as if it was made for him, and Finn wonders, vaguely, what it’s like, to know with such definitive confidence that something belongs to you.

Rey gets in a hit—a glancing blow to Kylo’s upper arm—and he hisses, pale face twisted in pain.

“You’re sloppy today,” she taunts, and Finn has rarely heard her sound so gleeful.

Rey advances before he can regain his footing, and Kylo barely raises his saber in time to block her next attack. He growls, sounding more like a beast than a man, calling Rey a scavenger brat.

He’s going to lose today, and Finn decides not to stick around for the inevitable blood and burns. He’d rather not see the triumph on Rey’s face when she defeats her opponent, because it worries him a little, the pleasure she always seems to take in injuring Kylo.

That night, when Rey undresses and joins him in bed, Finn sees that she’s unbruised and unburned.

“Looks like you won your spar,” he says, and he makes himself smile.

Rey wraps an arm around his waist, settles her head on his chest, and kisses the place over his heart. “I hate to say it, but I almost miss the way Ben used to fight. He was harder to beat then.”

Something in her wistful tone unsettles him, but Finn keeps his voice light when he asks, “Are you saying you liked Kylo Ren better when he was trying to kill you?”

Rey shifts, growing quiet for a long moment, before she finally says, “He never tried to kill me.”

“Never?” Finn asks. “What about—”

Rey climbs on top of him, straddling his hips, and says, “I do _not_ want to think about Ben Solo right now.”

Finn grins, puts his hands on her slender waist, and makes a sound between a laugh and moan when Rey takes his cock in hand. They make love, and it feels so good with her, the way it always does.

She’s different tonight: Rey scratches his chest, pulls his hair, rides him so roughly that it almost hurts. She’s always more aggressive in bed after she spars with Kylo. He supposes that this could simply be because fighting gets her blood running hot, but Finn can’t help but think there’s more to it than that.

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Rey is on a mission to infiltrate a First Order research facility with Ben at her side. He claims the pilot’s chair of their borrowed ship (he never rides in the _Falcon_ if he can help it), and she thumps him on the back of the head.

“You’re in my seat,” she says.

It’s an old argument, one they’ve been having for two years, ever since he abandoned Snoke and turned to the Resistance.

“You piloted last time,” Ben says.

Rey shrugs. “So? I should pilot every time. I’m better than you.”

“You _think_ you’re better than me,” he corrects. “That doesn’t make it true.”

She takes the co-pilot’s seat, because he’s a stubborn bastard when he he wants to be, and it isn’t worth delaying their mission to keep quarreling over this. Besides, as much as Rey hates to admit it, she knows Ben is a skilled pilot in his own right—if not quite as good as her.

This facility is one that he never had occasion to visit when he was Kylo Ren. Weapons development was purely under General Hux’s authority, Ben tells her, and this particular place was built after the destruction of Starkiller, less than a year before he betrayed his Supreme Leader.

Sometimes Rey would like to ask him why he turned traitor and changed his name, but she suspects she already knows the answer. That he left Snoke’s side for the same reason he avoids the _Millennium Falcon_.

Thessis 3 is one of five verdant moons that circle Ophidia, a purple gas giant banded with ribbons of blue clouds. They land at night, dressed in shadow-colored clothes, and Rey quietly sneaks them in through a backdoor by reconfiguring the admissions panel to unlock without scanning a security card.

“Not bad,” Ben says, and he follows her inside.

Rey snorts. “I just broke us into a top-secret First Order facility in less than five minutes, and all you have to say is ‘Not bad.’ Typical.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you required validation for your accomplishments,” Ben whispers silkily. “Next time I’ll give you a pat on the head.”

She feels herself blush, thankful for the darkness.

It’s a quick, bloodless mission. The building is remarkably similar to the abandoned imperial research facility on Jakku, a complex that she and others had scavenged beyond recognition by the time she was twelve. It makes getting around almost obscenely simple. The first thing they do is locate the security station to disable the video feeds and knock the guards there unconscious. Only a handful of scientists are working at this hour, and they’re easy to skirt around. Ben remembers enough about these sorts of places to know where the First Order would keep its most valuable plans. He finds the room they’re looking for, then Rey breaks into the system without detection and copies the weapons schematics. They leave Thessis 3 less than an hour after their arrival with the secrets of the First Order’s newest projects in hand.

Rey takes the pilot’s seat before Ben can poach it again.

“I still think this should have doubled as an assassination mission,” he says. “Some of those scientists worked on the construction of Starkiller.”

“You supported the system that made Starkiller possible,” Rey reminds him. “Should we kill you for it?”

“I’m sure you’d like to,” he says, and she isn’t sure whether he’s being flippant or sincere.

“I—I don’t want you dead,” Rey mumbles. “Not anymore.”

Ben stills, and the look he gives her is heavy with something she can’t determine. Normally he’s easy to read, because his face—beautiful, odd, and scarred though it is—is so expressive. But in this moment she has no idea what he’s thinking.

“Let’s get out of here,” Rey says, and she hates the fragility of her own voice, the weakness he can bring out in her. “I want to get back home to my husband.”

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Ben watches them from his corner table in the mess hall. Rey and Finn eat with Poe, while that infernal BB unit that he once chased across the galaxy blips and beeps happily at their side. Rey reaches over and straightens the droid’s antenna, a sweet smile gracing her pretty face. Finn wraps his arm around her shoulder and whispers something in her ear. Whatever it is must not be seemly to say in public, because Rey blushes and they excuse themselves from their table a few minutes later, disappearing in the direction of their quarters.

Ben has the sudden urge to flip his table, but he keeps the violent impulse in check. It’s none of his business if Rey and her husband want to fuck in the middle of the day.

Poe takes the seat across from him, and Ben frowns, suspicious. Most of the Resistance base still mistrusts him, despite two years of loyal service, and Poe is chief among those who don’t bother to hide their hatred—not that Ben can blame him, considering the interrogation he put him through on the _Finalizer_.

“I’m only going to tell you this once,” Poe says, and although he’s smiling, Ben can see that he finds nothing funny. “Leave Rey alone.”

Ben takes a bite of bread to keep from having to answer right away. It must be obvious, the jealousy he feels whenever he sees Finn and Rey touch with the possessive confidence that husbands and wives use when they put hands on each other. That’s embarrassing, but still funny, because Poe’s accusation is as wrong as it is right.

“What makes you think it’s Rey I’m interested in?” Ben asks. “Could be Finn.”

_Could be both_. Not that he’s about to admit that.

“That isn’t funny,” Poe says sharply.

Too late, Kylo realizes that Poe probably took that as a personal insult. Half the base has gossiped about Poe carrying on with Joph Seastriker, that thrill-seeking blonde pilot who looks like a Tatooine angel. Most of the rebels don’t care, but there are a few, from the more backwards planets queer marriage is still frowned on, who disapprove.

“Is that all?” Ben asks. He tries to keep his voice dull and disinterested, but he doubts Poe is buying his act.

Poe shakes his head. “Not quite. Rey’s a good woman, and she deserves a good man. If you care about her at all, you’ll keep out of her marriage.”

After Poe leaves, Ben goes to the green forest outside and takes his lightsaber to a fallen log, working out his frustration on something that can’t be hurt. He’d like to strangle Poe Dameron, mostly because he knows the man is right. Finn brings out the best in Rey, her kindness and compassion, and he makes her happy. And Rey, she seems to soothe Finn, to make him laugh, where Kylo only ever manages to anger or frighten him. If he was a less selfish creature he could find some solace in the good they bring each other, but Ben has always been too consumed with his own wants to achieve any measure of peace.

Finn seems to hate him without reservation, but he wonders whether he could turn Rey’s passion against her. She has a violent, aggressive side that she only exercises against him or her enemies, which he hopes he isn’t still counted among. And sometimes Ben thinks he sees something more there, a hint of desire that extends beyond bloodlust.

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Finn hears the shouting, just like everyone else within fifty feet of the corridor where his wife and Kylo Ren are screaming at each other. He misses the gist of the argument over the bustling crowd that surrounds them, but when he gets close enough, he hears Rey calling Kylo a liar. Then she pushes him in the chest, hard enough that he stumbles. Kylo’s scarred face twists with fury, and he pushes her back—

“Get your hands off her!”

Finn swings without thinking. Kylo is a half-foot taller than him and in possession of a lightsaber, while he’s unarmed, but Finn doesn’t care.

When Kylo touches his busted lip, his fingers come away bloody. “You’re not very smart, are you, FN-2187?”

“That’s not my name,” Finn says.

He turns to Rey, to make sure she’s all right, but his wife only scowls at him fiercely and jerks her hand away from his when he tries to touch her.

“I don’t need you to rescue me,” Rey says. “I can take care of myself.”

Then she rounds on Kylo and hisses, “If you ever lie to me again, I’ll hit you harder than that.”

Kylo looks her up and down, a smirk playing around the edges of his bloody mouth. “Whatever you say, pet.”

_Pet?_ That makes him want to hit the bastard all over again.

Rey hurries away, and Finn follows. She doesn’t stop until she’s reached their quarters. Then she paces the small suite, complains that Ben Solo is a kriffing liar, and promises to beat him bloody the next time they spar.

“What did he lie about?” Finn asks.

He expects it to be something important, something that affects the Resistance, but Rey grows quiet and a little sheepish when she admits, “He skipped our training and told me it was because he was ill. But I talked to Leia this morning and she told me he was—he was out with some woman last night.”

Rey shifts where she stands, and then Finn sees it, what she’s trying to keep from him: she isn’t angry because Kylo lied to her; she’s angry because he chose another woman’s company over hers.

“You’re jealous,” Finn says. The accusation catches in his throat, a tight, choking truth that steals his breath.

Rey shakes her head, eyes wide. “That’s ridiculous! I couldn’t care less if he—if he wants to—” She stumbles over her words, then grows quiet.

“You can’t even say it.” Finn sits down and puts his head in his hands.

Rey gets on her knees before him. “Please listen to me. I love _you_. Only you.”

“But you want him,” Finn says. “Don’t you?”

She’s silent for such a long time that she doesn’t need to answer, not really. “I’m sorry,” Rey whispers, and he’s never heard his wife sound so subdued, so ashamed. “I’m so sorry, Finn.”

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She avoids Ben for two weeks and lets him think it’s because he lied to her. Rey wants to make things right with her husband, but she’s hurt Finn and doesn’t know how to fix it. He’s barely speaking to her, and he hasn’t turned to her in the night since she made a fool of herself with her jealousy over Ben.

She goes to the technos’ bay to find something to fix. It takes her mind off of her problems, sometimes, to salvage speeders and droids that others consider irreparable. To create something of worth out of broken things. This she knows how to do, if not much else.

Rey nearly trips over a pair of long legs, stretched out on the duracrete floor, and then _he_ slides out from underneath the speeder he was working on, saying, “Watch where you’re going—”

Ben freezes when he sees who he’s reprimanding, and Rey’s stomach does an uncomfortable flip at the sight of him shirtless, sweaty, fair skin streaked with oil and grime. He stands, towering over her, and wipes his dirty hands on his pants.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

“Fixing a speeder,” he says.

Rey glances behind him, and then she recognizes the cobbled-together vehicle. “Is that your mother’s?”

“Yes,” Ben says. “It’s a piece of garbage, though. She’d be better off scrapping it and having me build her something new.”

“Don’t discount the value of garbage,” Rey says, and she can’t hold back a smile when she thinks of her first impression of the _Falcon._

“Spoken like a true scavenger,” Ben says.

Rey allows herself a moment to really look at him, at his powerful arms, broad shoulders, muscled stomach. He’s every bit as well built as Finn, but taller, bigger. She wonders, not for the first time, what it might feel like to be caught beneath him, pinned against a bed by that strong body.

She never thinks of Ben when she’s with her husband. Rey wouldn’t disrespect Finn that way, and when they make love she’s usually too lost in the pleasure he brings to want anyone besides him. But there are times, when she’s alone, that Rey touches herself and imagines it’s Ben’s hands on her body. Afterward, she always feels guilty, sick with herself for indulging these fantasies—but not guilty enough to stop.

Now Ben smiles at her, that subtle smirk that would be almost easy to miss. The look he gives her is so knowing that Rey is certain he’s caught her admiring his body.

“I didn’t know you were a mechanic,” she says.

“I used to work on speeders, ships, droids, you name it. I did that all the time as a child. And sometimes…” Ben’s smile goes out like a light. “Sometimes I’d help with repairs on the _Falcon_.”

“I didn’t know Han long,” Rey says softly, “but I think it would make him happy to see you here.”

Ben wipes his hands on his pants more vigorously, as if he’s trying to clean them of something more dirtying than oil. “I don’t want to talk about my father,” he says.

“All right,” Rey says, even though she thinks he needs to talk to _someone_ about it. “Want help with that speeder?”

He shrugs. “Sure. You’ll do a better job than me anyway.”

They spend a companionable afternoon repairing the hunk of junk that Leia calls transportation. It’s one of the most hopeless projects Rey has ever undertaken, but by dinner the speeder is in working order.

“So are you going to stop avoiding me?” Ben asks, as they wash up at the sinks.

Rey scrubs her hands and arms with industrial soap. “I wasn’t—”

“You were,” he says, and now there’s a fierce note in his deep voice.

She turns off the water and dries her hands, thinking of Veri Apolis, the woman Ben was drinking with two weeks ago, a voluptuous friend of Joph’s. Rey finds herself annoyed all over again, jealous of a woman she’s barely spoken to. “If you’d rather be fucking some two-bit pilot than training, that’s your business,” she says.

Ben looks at her with such open need that she takes a step back. He crowds her against the wall, cages her in with his strong arms.

“What are you doing?” Rey asks. “People are looking.”

“Let them look.” He cups her cheek, and Rey hates how she trembles under his touch, how her breath catches and her legs go weak.

“I don’t want her,” Ben whispers. “I want you.”

He leans down, his broad back bending sharply, until his lips are just a breath away from hers. She almost expects him to kiss her, and when he doesn’t, Rey feels disappointment that’s eclipsed only by relief.

“I’m married,” she says, as steadily as she can manage.

“You think I don’t know that?” Ben asks sharply. He hits the wall beside her head, and Rey nearly jumps at the ringing sound. “That I don’t watch you with him, every day, and wish—”

She pushes him away and hurries from the bay, because Rey knows that if she stays this close to Ben one moment longer, she might do something she’ll deeply regret.


	2. Chapter 2

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_They’re always coming and going. And you’re always answering the door. Maybe you enjoy abandonment a little bit._

_After all, it’s all you’ve ever known. And there’s a comfort in repetition._

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Rey stops sparring with Kylo, and when the general tries to pair them together for a mission, she refuses to work with him. Finn heard from three different people about what happened in the technos’ bay, so he doesn’t have to ask why she’s avoiding her—friend? Ally? (It’s hard to pin down Rey’s relationship with Kylo, because she’s never very keen to discuss it.) His wife is too good, too true, to ever be unfaithful, so she’s doing her best to remove herself from temptation’s way.

Things go back to something like normal, except that there are now quiet moments when Finn catches Rey staring off into the distance, as if she sees something impossible and tantalizing just out of reach. She always trains alone, now that Luke is off-world, and every time she returns from practicing her forms, she’s frustrated and short with him. And once, he wakes in the middle of the night to hear the water running in the bathroom. Rey thinks she’s being clever, covering the sound of her sobs with the shower, but she can’t fool him. After two years of marriage, he knows most of her tricks.

Today, she’s barely picking at her food—a sure sign that something is wrong—and Finn only has to look across the hall to see Kylo watching them. He’s trying to be subtle about it, but he can’t seem to help but glance at Rey every minute or so.

“Are you happy with me?” Finn asks.

“Of course,” Rey says, but her answer is so quick, so automatic, that he fears she put no thought into it.

Finn takes her hand, twines their fingers together. He tries to keep his voice quiet, unaccusing and safe from eavesdroppers, when he asks, “Then why do you want him so badly?”

Rey allows herself to look across the hall, and Finn knows she’s gazing at Kylo.

“It’s not that I love you any less, or desire you any less, than I did when we first married,” she says. “I don’t want Ben more than you, or instead of you.”

Finn frowns, relieved but confused. He doesn’t say anything, though, because he suspects that Rey isn’t finished.

She takes a deep breath. “I just—maybe I need you both?”

Finn can’t think of anything to say to that, and Rey stares pointedly at the table. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me to be so selfish, so greedy.”

“You’re not those things,” Finn says. “And there’s nothing wrong with you.”

“You’re not mad?” Rey asks.

No, he isn’t, although Finn supposes perhaps he should be. “You’re not sneaking around behind my back, are you?”

“Of course not!” Rey says. “I’d never hurt you like that. And besides—I may want Ben, but only if having him never comes at your expense. Does that make any sense at all?”

“I think so,” Finn says. He doesn’t fully understand what she means, but he barely cares. What Rey feels for Kylo isn’t borne from dissatisfaction with their marriage, or disappointment in him as a husband, and that’s all that matters.

He’s tired of watching his wife wilt, seeing her brightness dim as she fights her own desires. She’s making herself miserable trying to make him happy, and Finn can’t think of anything he could want less.

Later, he kisses his way down her chest and stomach, then settles between her legs. Finn knows her body, has learned every part of her, and it’s almost easy to make her moan, to make her come. Rey shouts his name into the cloying shadows of their bedroom, clutching the sheets in her fists, as she rides out her climax.

He climbs on top of her and kisses her, presses his cock against her wet sex. Rey wraps her legs around him, and Finn can’t wait another moment. It’s been so long, and he’s missed her so much. She whimpers when their bodies join, and he goes slowly, gently, careful not to hurt, until Rey begs him to have her harder.

“Is this how you imagine it with him?” he asks, breathless, while he fucks her. This isn’t the sort of question he’s _supposed_ to ask his wife, but Finn stopped caring about other people’s rules the day he left the First Order.

Rey blushes all the way down to her breasts. “I don’t think you want to hear about that,” she says.

“I do, though,” Finn whispers, and it’s true. He’s been painfully curious about this for weeks, but for the first time since he discovered that his wife wants another man, his curiosity isn’t colored by jealousy. He wants to hear about her fantasies—all of them, no matter how secret or shocking—because how else can he give her what she needs?

Finn gives a rough thrust, and she throws back her head, mouth open on a gasp.

“When you pretend he’s in our bed, what do you think about doing with him?”

He touches her sex, rubbing rapid circles there that make her shiver.

“Sometimes I think about hurting him,” Rey says, so softly that he almost misses her confession. “Or letting him hurt me.”

“Tell me,” Finn says. Voicing these things sends a shock of heat across his cheeks but hearing her answer is too satisfying to let shame stop him.

She stammers through a quick list of deeds: pulling Kylo’s hair and slapping his face, restraining and choking him; having these things done to her in return. Her desire to punish Kylo is easy to believe, but it shocks him a bit that Rey—always so powerful and in control—wants to be hurt back. What shocks him even more is that the thought of his wife being thrown around by another man doesn’t bother him at all. Finn imagines Kylo fucking her, those large hands of his wrapped around Rey’s throat, strong body pumping between her legs—

He bites back a groan when he comes, grits his teeth to keep from making any noise as the pleasure overwhelms him.

Afterward, Finn lies beside her, breathing hard.

Rey runs her fingers up and down his chest, idly touching him. It feels right, simply because he’s hers. “You liked hearing about that?”

“Yeah,” he whispers. “I did.”

He’s not sure that he found Rey’s fantasy so arousing purely because of his wife’s part in it, and he doesn’t quite know what to do with this discovery. It isn’t that Finn has never found men attractive before—Poe, at least, is far too handsome not to notice in this way—but Kylo Ren is not like other men.

He spent so many years ground under the heel of the First Order’s boot, a system that Kylo supported, and his contributions to the Resistance have not done enough to earn Finn’s trust. If he’s honest with himself, he knows that his nervousness where Kylo is concerned is rooted in latent fear as much as disrespect. The bastard still calls him FN-2187, that awful number that made him less than a person. Just a nameless, faceless soldier in a series. Expendable.

He should hate Kylo without reservation, should find him too deplorable to desire in any way. But apparently he doesn’t, and neither does Rey.

His wife falls asleep with her face pressed against the nape of his neck, one arm hooked around his chest, a slender leg slung over his hip. It’s a sweet little peculiarity, that she prefers lying like this, despite being a bit shorter and much lighter than him. The _big spoon_ , Poe called it, when Finn mentioned this quirk of his wife’s.

He has the odd thought, just before drifting off to sleep himself, that Rey would look both beautiful and mildly ridiculous if she tried to hold Kylo this way.

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Rey wakes to the smell of burning food. She hears Finn, voice pitched high as he yells, “Shit!”

The smoke detector goes off, and Rey laughs into her pillow, because even through the blaring alarm, she can hear her husband cursing a colorful streak.

She hurries to the kitchen, where she finds Finn standing on a chair, waving a stack of flimsies at the detector, as if fanning it will trick its sensors into ignoring a room full of smoke. Just as Rey opens her mouth to make fun of him for it, the alarm stops and the red light on the detector blinks to a cheerful green.

“Huh,” she says. “Neat trick.”

Finn smiles at her. “You’d know it already if you ever made breakfast.”

“I don’t cook for you because I love you,” Rey says.

Neither of them had many opportunities to learn their way around a kitchen, but Finn at least has some interest in trying. Rey suspects that it’s his reaction against growing up with no one to cook for. Now that he has someone to love, he wants to spoil her.

They throw away the blackened toast, and Rey eats two bowls of scrambled, scarlet eggs that have been spiced with pink peppers and yellow onions. It’s Rey’s favorite kind of meal, flavorful and hearty, full of bright tastes and vibrant colors.

“This is delicious,” Rey says, and Finn laughs—probably because she spoke through a mouthful of food.

He must know better than to start a conversation when she’s eating, because he waits until they’re washing dishes to say, “We should talk. About last night.”

Rey wills herself not to blush; she blushes anyway. “Last night was fun,” she says, as lightly as she can manage.

Finn takes a clean dish from her, dries it, and puts it away. Then he turns to her, and his grin is genuine, if unimpressed. “Last night _was_ fun,” he says. “But it was also kind of a mess. So why don’t we sit down and talk about it?”

Her husband is kind, and loving, and too generous for his own good. Rey already knows what he’s going to say, and she doesn’t want to hear it.

“We don’t need to—”

Finn cups her cheeks between his palms, and his touch is so warm. Just the barest brush of his hands on her skin makes her feel wanted, safe, loved. At home.

“It’s okay,” he whispers.

They go back to bed and cling together beneath the covers. Rey buries herself against the crook of Finn’s neck, and breathes him in. He smells like smoke and the faded, lewd scent of their lovemaking from last night. Once she feels calmer, they pull apart and sit up.

Finn speaks first. Of course he does; he’s the brave one, of the two of them. The bravest person she’s ever known.

He says, “I think I get it now, what you’ve been trying to tell me. Kylo isn’t a threat to what we have. We come first for each other, right?”

“Always,” Rey says, without hesitation.

“Good,” Finn says. “So if you want to start seeing him, I’d understand.”

He smiles, but it’s weak around the edges.

The day Rey met him, Finn was running away from the First Order so he wouldn’t have to hurt innocents. Then he ran _back_ to Starkiller to rescue her. He’s always been so damn self-sacrificing, and it drives her mad. Rey suspects that Finn is so quick to put the welfare of others over his own safety because he doesn’t value himself as he should, and she’s not about to let him do it now.

“No,” she says. “I’m not risking our marriage—not risking _you_ —over some stupid infatuation. It’s not worth it.”

Rey spent most of her life wishing for the impossible, but each tally-marked day on Jakku crushed her hopes a little more. By the time Finn wandered into Niima Outpost, she’d made an art out of loneliness, honing her self-sufficiency for the sake of survival. She’d tried to push him away, just like she did everyone else, but they met under such chaotic circumstances—the Force throwing them headlong into danger together—that she’d let her guard down. Finn broke through the walls around her heart like they’d been built on sand, like they weren’t even there. By the time she kissed him goodbye on D’Qar, Rey was already so enamored with him that half the reason she ran to Ahch-To was to get away from her feelings.

And later, once she’d returned with Luke, falling in love with Finn had been easy. Friendship flowered into passion, then love, and they’d married within a year of meeting. She’s fought too hard and survived through too much to throw away the best part of her life on a man like Ben Solo.

“ _Rey_ —”

“No,” she says. “We’re done talking about this. Don’t bring it up again.”

Finn stands, pulls on his clothes—standard Resistance wear except for the jacket that once belonged to Poe—and says, “I love you, Rey, but nobody gets to tell me when I can’t speak. Not even you.”

The door closes behind him with a sharp, echoing snap. It sounds final in a way that Rey doesn’t like.

She sits in the middle of their bed long after he’s left, clutching her knees to her chest. The last time Rey felt this small, she was watching a ship retreat, shouting her fears to the bright Jakku sky. Begging not to be left behind.

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.

.

Finn comes to his door while the sky outside is grey, more night than morning still.

“I haven’t even had a cup of caf yet,” Ben says. “So this better be good.”

“Oh, it’s great,” Finn says flatly. “Zak Malbus caught a stormtrooper on his last mission and brought him back alive. So guess who gets to do the interrogation?”

Ben rubs a hand over his face. “Us.”

It isn’t the first time. They’ve been given this task twice before. Finn understands which questions to ask, the right direction to press in, how to obtain the most information with the least damage. And Ben, of course, has the ability to extract answers from an unwilling subject.

“I’ll get dressed,” Ben says.

Fifteen minutes later, they’re sitting across from FN-2000, a stormtrooper from the same class as Finn. He’s a good-looking man in his mid-twenties with a prominent scar across his cheek. It stands out, pale against his dark skin, the kind of mark that never enjoyed the privilege of a bacta bath.

FN-2000 grins when he sees Finn. “Well if it isn’t the traitor. I wondered if I’d be seeing you here, Eighty-Seven.”

“Hey, Zeroes.”

“You two know each other?” Ben asks.

“Yeah, we go way back. Been on the same fireteam since he we were kids. At least until Eighty-Seven here let Slip die, ran away, and killed Nines,” Zeroes says. Then he looks right at Finn, and his smile twists into something ugly. “Guess you weren’t the perfect stormtrooper after all.”

Finn looks away. “I never said I was.”

Ben takes a seat across the table from Zeroes and says, “This isn’t the place for you to air your grievances and petty jealousy. It doesn’t matter who the two of you used to be. Finn is a captain here, and you’re a prisoner. So show some respect, or I’ll make you.”

Ben can feel Finn watching him, but he doesn’t dare break his gaze from Zeroes to see the expression on his face.

It’s straightforward, as interrogations go. Zeroes clearly gets under Finn’s skin more than the last two stormtroopers, but even when Ben can feel that he’s on the verge of losing his composure, Finn keeps himself together. Asks the right questions, the smart questions, until he lulls Zeroes into a false sense of security. The stormtrooper says too much—enough that being rescued would lead to greater pain than can be found in Resistance prison. It only takes the threat of Ben’s interrogation skills to get Zeroes to spill everything he knows.

“Sibensko,” he says. “I came from a new base on Sibensko. It’s a small installation, nothing like Starkiller, but the locals are sympathetic.”

“He’s telling the truth,” Ben says. It doesn’t take a full mind probing to tell when someone is lying, or when they aren’t. Especially if the object of attention is as nervous as this one is now.

“It’s been—” Zeroes stops, his lips pressed together tightly.

Finn leans forward, patient, waiting.

After a minute, Ben breaks the silence, because patience isn’t a virtue he’s ever possessed. Not as Jedi or a devotee of the dark side or a wanderer of this strange grey path he’s taken now.

“What has it been?” he asks.

“Safe,” Zeroes whispers. “So far Sibensko has been safe for us. And now it won’t be.”

Ben snorts. “Well, you’re not wrong.”

Finn steps on his foot under the table, too subtle for Zeroes to see but hard enough to hurt, and Kylo hides his grunt behind a cough.

Zeroes spends the next hour giving them all the details of the Sibensko base, an underwater city that was rebuilt in the shadow of the Amaxine Warriors’ hideout. (“Friends of your general’s,” Zeroes says, nodding at Ben, and that’s intriguing enough that he’ll have to ask his mother about it.) There are a half-dozen unforgiving cameras capturing the confession, so there’s no need to take notes, but Finn records it anyway, tapping away on a datapad. Ben suspects that he simply wants something to look at besides his ex-teammate.

After they’ve updated the brass, Ben tells Finn, “Thank you.”

Finn looks at him, his eyes sharp and suspicious, like he thinks Ben’s gratitude might be a trick. “What are you thanking me for?”

“He made you nervous, but you didn’t let it get in the way of your job, and I didn’t have to probe his mind at all.” Ben stares at the wall just above Finn’s head. “It isn’t something I enjoy.”

“Anymore,” Finn says.

Ben stands up straighter, drawing as much distance between himself and Finn as possible without giving away any ground. He tries not to think about the shallow space between, the heat that’s charging the air, as turbulent as clouds on the edge of brewing into a storm.

“In case you didn’t notice, there are two traitors standing here,” Ben says, “and we just worked together to make a third. I’ve seen your mission reports; you’ve killed hundreds of stormtroopers, soldiers who were programmed from infancy, just like you were. This war is a mess, and none of our hands are clean.”

“And I guess that absolves you of everything, right?” Finn steps closer, closer into his space, until Ben can smell the clean scent on his skin, standard soap and something else— _Rey_.

“Of course not. Nothing could absolve me.”

He leaves before Finn can say anything else. There’s nothing left to talk about anyway.

He thinks of Rey, strapped to that interrogation chair on Starkiller Base, crying as he stole into her mind to spy on her most private memories. Of Finn, burned and bleeding in the snow. And his father, falling falling falling off the bridge—his father saying, “I’ll be home soon,” one lie after another, because he was a liar—and Ben would give anything, even his own wretched life, if it would bring his father back to tell lies again. But it won’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to Deep Poetic Girl and ReyloTrashCompactor for their constant support and beta work on my stories. You ladies are my inspiration!
> 
> The quote featured in this chapter is by Erin Van Vuren.


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